


Grand Romantic

by FifteenDozenTimes



Category: The Boat Show, The Thrilling Adventure Hour
Genre: F/M, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-26
Updated: 2015-12-26
Packaged: 2018-05-09 12:55:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5540843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FifteenDozenTimes/pseuds/FifteenDozenTimes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An origin story, of sorts. The Great Pals Players find a home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Grand Romantic

**Author's Note:**

  * For [indyb9999](https://archiveofourown.org/users/indyb9999/gifts).



> For the Thrilling Adventure Hour Secret Santa.

It is, of course, always a sad thing when a small theater shuts down. Sadder still to see it bulldozed into real estate before it has the chance to develop the sort of history that attracts wealthy last-minute saviors. Not quite sad enough for Hutch’s idea to sound like a good one, but close, maybe. Maybe if Hutch weren’t quite so...Hutch-like, maybe if sometimes Duncan got to be the grand romantic, the whole thing would look different.

“We’ve been saving for years, Hutch.”

“For this very occasion!”

Duncan sighs and rubs at the bridge of his nose, trying to soothe the headache he can feel creeping in, the special headache he gets just for Hutch. 

“Someday. We’ve put on two shows, we don’t get to skip ahead to the owning our own theater part of the plan yet. And if we blow all our savings, and it doesn’t work out, we’ll have to go back to our day jobs, and you will _die_.”

“Don’t be so dramatic.”

The thing of it is, if anyone could make this work, it would be Hutch. Hutch, who convinced Duncan to take a chance on him in the first place, Hutch who turned Gale and Dale into serious actors when Duncan wanted to try his hand at tragedy, Hutch who picked Rose out from the last row of a chorus and made her his romantic lead, Hutch who somehow never fails at anything he tries.

The other thing is, though, he never fails because Duncan follows along behind him, keeping careful track of their budget, frantically rewriting to the last possible minute, spending hours working with Rose until she knew she could carry a show. It’s not that Duncan wants to clip his wings, but what happens if Hutch flies away faster than Duncan can follow behind with a safety net?

“We could put on a show,” Duncan hears himself saying, one of those out of body experiences that, like this headache, only Hutch can bring on. “A fundraiser.”

Hutch beams a billion-watt smile at him, eyes twinkling, not at all surprised he managed to get Duncan on the hook. If this doesn’t pan out, if they’re left penniless on the street, maybe Duncan can convince him to turn to con artistry to keep them alive.

“I’m sure you’ll write just the thing,” he says, with so much conviction Duncan believes it himself.

*

“Oh yeah, the owner’s a real softie,” says the fresh-faced kid Hutch insisted Duncan meet. “I bet if you make a whole big love-of-theater appeal, he’ll give you a real good deal. Just, no one’s tried that yet.”

“No one else is this stupid,” Duncan mutters, earning him an elbow in the ribs. He can’t bring himself to care much; he’s having a hard time writing, so he’s having a hard time sleeping, and he’s not entirely certain why Hutch insisted he come along to meet with this soon-to-be out-of-work curtaineer. It’s unfair to take it out on Tad or Ted or whatever his name is, but Hutch has a way of deflecting any bad mood Duncan throws his way, and it has to go somewhere.

“Would it sweeten the pot,” Hutch asks, and Duncan doesn’t exactly panic, but isn’t entirely looking forward to finding out what Hutch is about to offer, “if we promised to keep certain staff on?”

Ted - Tad - Todd? Todd nods, giving Hutch a wink and a knowing smile like he’s just understood some secret code Hutch was speaking in. Sure.

“I’ll see what I can do,” he says, and makes an odd squeaking noise in the back of his throat as he walks away.

*

Rose doesn’t need vocal coaching, has never needed vocal coaching, but she seems to get something out of her sessions with Duncan, and she’s a mostly normal human with a lovely voice so it’s not exactly a hardship to spend time with her.

“You look awful,” she says, and Duncan wants to be offended, or argue, but he can’t pretend she’s not right.

“I forgot to sleep,” Duncan says. There’s a better way to say that, probably, something artsy and mysterious about being gripped by the muse or in the throes of inspiration or something, but mostly he just sort of forgot. He thinks maybe Rose is the sort to prefer sad honesty to handsome bullshit.

“Does he know how lucky he is to have you?” Rose asks. It’s not the response he was expecting, and it’s not something he ever really thinks about. He thinks about it now, though, the way Hutch announces his grand schemes and just expects Duncan to go along, the way he throws caution to the wind without noticing how it blows right into Duncan’s face, the red pens he takes to Duncan’s words when they don’t fit right in his mouth. But also the way he keeps his smiles tight and small until Duncan agrees to go along with his plan, the way he keeps Duncan by his side while he swans through life, the way his eyes go soft when he reads fresh pages of speeches or lyrics.

“I think so,” he says. Someday he’ll ask Rose what it was about that answer that led her to slip her hand around the back of his neck and guide him into a gentle kiss.

*

Duncan spends a lot of time calculating the seats they need to fill, the price they need to charge for those seats, how many performances they can put on. When they start putting up flyers, start selling tickets, he starts a different set of calculations - just how much he has saved, how much of that he’ll need to put into the Great Pals Players for the next few years, how much he can live on for how long.

The show is good - Duncan’s never been one of those people who can’t recognize his own good work - and the Players are their usual incandescent selves. There’s even something special about the curtain work Duncan can’t quite put his finger on. The house is never full, though, not as full as it needs to be.

After their final performance, Duncan slips away to a quiet corner to run the numbers once again, even though he knows how they’ll come out. Hutch finds him there, sparkling with the afterglow of performance and applause, just a shiver of apprehension in the air around him. It’s that, right there, that hesitation in his steps as he approaches, the little pause before he speaks, that makes the decision for Duncan.

“How’d we do?” Hutch asks, and even though he’s sure, even though he’s made up his mind, visions of empty checking accounts and ramen dinners dance through his head.

“We made it,” Duncan says, and the way Hutch seems to light up from the ends of his hair to the toes of his shoes, the way he yanks Duncan out of his chair and spins him around in delight, erases all of Duncan’s doubts. For now, anyway.


End file.
